


I don't want to set the world on fire (I just want to start a small conflagration)

by romans



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 14:16:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romans/pseuds/romans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is: Petyr is a bright boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't want to set the world on fire (I just want to start a small conflagration)

Catelyn, his childhood playmate, is suddenly a goddess, with her long red hair and her wide blue eyes. If Lysa is just as beautiful, Petyr doesn't see it. She is a pale imitation of her sister; a ghost, a mouse.

Petyr overthinks it. He cannot see Catelyn being happy at The Fingers. She needs sunlight and green grass, and trees towering like a Great Sept overhead. He abandons his father's severe ablutions and worships the Seven beside Catelyn. For Catelyn. With Catelyn.

Lysa, always quiet and withdrawn, suddenly becomes petulant and tenacious, a constant thorn in his side. Her skin is sallow where Catelyn's is alabaster. Her eyes are pale where her sister's are bright. She follows Petyr everywhere, always tugging him away from her sister, trying to entice him with music and books and insipid conversation. When he snaps at her, she avoids him for days.

He hardly notices her absence, because Cat's green skirts are spread out over the grass of the Godswood. Cat's shoes are abandoned so that she can feel the cool ground beneath her feet. Cat is searching for castles in the clouds. Petyr sprawls beside her, his fingers intertwined with hers, dreaming.

Somewhere nearby a mockingbird is singing loudly, secure in his leafy eyrie.

They could be a great lord and lady, together. He'll ask her for her hand, one day, when he can offer her more than a drafty broch to live in and salted gannett to sup on. Perhaps he'll become a great knight, the Champion of the Realm with a fine house in King's Landing, and an estate near Riverrun, so that she can be close to her family. He imagines King Rhaegar raising him up to Lord of Harrenhall, imagines himself bedecked in medals and jewels and fine silks. He could knock his father's musty hall to the ground and never return.

Cat rolls over, curls her body against his. It's almost sisterly.

He slides an arm around her back, lets her rest her head on his chest. Her hair smells like oranges.

+

So much is made of that duel, as if it was the defining moment of his life. Of course it isn't, but everyone has forgotten that. They all think that he's a petty lordling, still smarting from a blow struck five-and-ten years ago.

He doesn't like swords, they say, because he can't use one. He is no great threat. Petyr Baelish is a little man, a slimy man, an untrustworthy man. A useful man.

Everyone has forgotten the _reason_ for the duel; few knew it in the first place.

They saw a boy, fighting for the hand of a lady far above his station. They saw a hopeless romantic, a boy who thought he was a hero from a song, a fool who thought that he could defeat Brandon Stark in single combat.

They saw him struck down by a sword.

People always remember that.

+

The thing is: Petyr is a bright boy. Catelyn catches him in the Godswood one day, pushes him up against a tree, eyes wide, and presses a kiss to his lips. When she pulls away, blushing, he can't help the smile that spreads across his face.

"Am I your sweet Florian?" he asks, and she ducks her head, smiling.

"I just wanted to see what it was like," she says.

"Me too," he whispers, because he's been thinking about this for months now. It seems inevitable. She's his dearest friend, his closest confidante. There's nothing about him that she doesn't know, and he can't count the number of times she's come to him for counsel and comfort. The best place in the world, for them, is to be curled in each other's arms, safe against the entire universe. He kisses her again. It feels perfect.

They spend the rest of the day curled against the tree, lost in each other's arms. When a summer rainstorm breaks, drenching them both in minutes, Catelyn shrieks with delight and spins under the trees, her skirt clinging damply to her legs. They race back to the castle together, giggling and clutching at each other. The heavy sound of the door closing behind them, and the sudden silence as it cuts off the rain, make it seem as if they're in another world. Their Godswood is a secret.

Lysa is standing on the stairway, pale and slender and almost dwarfed by the shawl around her shoulders. Her face is like stone.

"I saw you," she says.

Petyr drops Cat's hand and leans against the wall, shaking his head like a dog. Catelyn gives him one last giddy smile and then turns to her sister, saying something soft and soothing. Lysa will not tell. Catelyn has always been able to get her way. Petyr lets himself slide down the wall, heedless of his sticky clothes, and watches Cat as she and Lysa go up the stairs, their heads bent together conspiratorially.

In that moment, as the rain pounds against the wood of the door and icy water trickles down his spine, Petyr knows that he will never wed Catelyn Tully.

+

The noble lords and ladies, the knights of the realm did not see him on his sickbed. They did not care about the details of his recovery. They never saw Cat, all red hair and orange blossoms, kissing him in the night, whispering in his ear that he was good and brave and she loved him, _him_ and no one else. Whispering that she wanted to marry him, to be his lady. That he would be a great man one day.

Petyr knows that a blade is just a tool. It is not as useful as knowledge, or as sharp as a word in the right ear. Songs are more subtle and a smile more useful. Even a wound can be a weapon; Brandon Stark may have won the battle, but Petyr Baelish won the war. After all, he knows that he has Catelyn Tully's heart.


End file.
